The Initiation of Sebastian Smythe
by pi-on-a-skateboard
Summary: When Sebastian learns just what it means to steal a gavel... Comes with a side-serving of Niff!


"You. Out."

Nick glared at his grey-eyed, brunetted acquaintance as Charlie, the freshman he was tutoring, jumped out of his seat in fright.

Sebastian grinned as he slid in next to him. "Hey, sexy."

"What do you want, Sebastian?"

He pouted… though of course it came off as a smirk. "What, no flirting?"

"Since I have a _boyfriend_," Nick said, trying to relax his jaw, "and seeing how I don't actually like you and you hate me…" he glared into his eyes, "and you only talk to me when you _want_ something," he began packing up his and Charlie's books, "and you scared away my pupil… No, I'm not going to flirt with you."

Sebastian shrugged. But, even as Nick continued packing everything into bags, he could feel the eyes boring into him, the… hunger in them, like a flame hungers for oxygen, following his every moment. He was suddenly aware of just how far up on his arms his sleeves were pushed, every muscle flexing… Dammit, he wasn't meant to be self-conscious of how far his arms pronated and just how obvious every contour of his supinator was.

"Can I _help_ you?"

Sebastian still stared at him, his eyes bigger than his stomach.

"Fine. I have other places to be. And, I'm not a piece of meat."

Sebastian snickered. But as Nick grabbed his bag (_damn, did his pecs always ripple that much through his jumper?!_) the junior finally decided to speak. "I heard you and Jeff broke up."

"What, and you wanted to know if you could treat him like one of your poster boys?" Nick snorted, a little too tersely. _Like that would ever happen._

"I happen to have standards, you know," Sebastian replied… honestly seeming a little hurt.

"Well, we didn't," Nick replied, ignoring the stab in his gut. They hadn't actually broken apart. The words 'break' had never been used. "We just… had a small disagreement…" A tiny, insignificant, disagreement, that in a couple of days' time would mean nothing. Nothing at all. They just… had to let it blow over a little…

"Oh." Sebastian's eyes clouded, taking on more of a blue tone… or was it the light? It was so hard to tell – they were always changing colour on his mood. Though, this is, of course, assuming the boy actually had feelings. Times like these, when he just popped up to dig a nail into your hands and feet, always made Nick wonder.

Shaking his head, breaking himself away from Seb's amazing technicolour eyes, Nick started over to the library to find Charlie. But, as he took a step, there was suddenly a hand on his upper (_don't tense your biceps RELAX do not flex WHY ARE THEY SO TIGHT?_) arm.

"Listen." The eyes had gone back to a darkish grey. "I _am_ sorry. I know you won't believe me, but I didn't mean to hurt you."

Nick sighed, shaking him off.

"I just… I thought that maybe, if you had… I wondered if you… er…"

Nick stopped. Sebastian… was unnaturally eloquent, with such a similarity to Wes that he'd almost instantly been elected as 'advisor to the council'. Hearing him falter was… astounding. "What?"

Sebastian sat back down, his hand (_when had that reappeared on his arm?_) dragging Nick to the chair opposite him. "Can you tell me about the gavel?"

"What?!"

"The gavel," Sebastian repeated, more urgently. "What's up with that?"

Nick laughed. "Wes, our old – "

"I've heard the legends."

"Yeah, legend fits," he said with a grin. "We're not entirely sure how it started, but he had this… obsession is putting it _mildly_… with the things. He had _so many_ of them so it never actually mattered… but it became a running joke, because he'd get so _worked up_ over them all. So, it eventually became an initiation ritual, to steal one of them. We used to award the best hiding places…" He smiled at the memories… Gavels inside the piano lids, replacing the door handles throughout the school, strung up and hung from the flagpole…

Apparently the grin didn't go unnoticed by Sebastian, who was mirroring him. An actual smile had replaced the usual cheeky smirk. "What did you do?"

Nick laughed again. "I… Me and Jeff… We got written in the chronicles and stored in the desk…"

Sebastian looked at him… his eyes now appearing more green.

"Have you seen Amelie?"

Seb snorted. "I did live in Paris."

"You remember when she – "

"You _gave it to a flight attendant?_"

"We gave it to Jeff's mother."

"Who's a flight attendant?"

"She's an Australian actress," Nick clarified.

Sebastian shook his head. "So, what happened?"

It was actually… quite enjoyable having a proper conversation with the boy. "Wes, of course, knew instantly that it had gone missing. Probably suspected that either of us had a hand in it… so he sent the search crews out."

"And nothing turned up."

"Of course not. It was over the Atlantic by that stage." He snorted. "He used _everything_ to try and locate it. Threatened us with getting kicked out, bribed us with solos… but of course, we didn't say a thing. And then, a month later – after we'd found him rocking in the foetal position, stroking a few of his other babies… after the surprise attacks, after the constant enquiries we were subjected to… and then after the two weeks of complete silence – he calls an emergency Warbler meeting."

Sebastian sniggered.

"He'd set up a corkboard. Now, Jeff's mother had been travelling before she arrived back home. So, on this corkboard, he'd pegged maybe ten different pictures… The gavel as a fifth leg of the Eiffel Tower, knocking over the Leaning Tower of Pisa, resting against Stonehenge… that sort of thing…"

"Bet Thad was crapping himself," Seb remarked, his tone so _light_.

Nick bobbed his head. "We all were. Wes was… If he weren't standing, we would have sworn he were epileptic, the way he was spitting and thrashing at us. I think he started cursing in Japanese at one point…"

Sebastian shook his head.

"Then, a month later, there were more photos. The last one in the series was of a gavel 'floating' in a tank with a school of clown fish."

"How the hell are you still alive?" Sebastian asked, his mouth and eyes both absolutely _huge_.

Nick snorted. "I don't know. Perhaps because I was just learning how to speak to people then, so the last thing Wes would do would be to yell at me… And Jeff is just…"

"A charming little bastard," Sebastian said with a shake of his head.

"Yeah. His accent could talk him out of the death penalty," Nick said, not letting himself either fall into daydream or nightmare… It had been nearly a day since he'd last heard those nasalated vowels, that dulcet tone switching every statement into a question…

Sebastian snapped his fingers by Nick's eyes. "So, did he get it back?"

"Hmm?" Nick shook his head to clear it. "Yeah. One Warbler meeting, the headmaster walked in, put it on his desk, and told him that 'Dory said to take better care of his possessions'."

Sebastian laughed, and Nick was surprised at how pleasant he suddenly became. Like he was human. Just another teenage boy… The way his eyes crinkled up and his eyelashes (_holy crap how LONG are they?!_) sparkled in the light and his perfect white teeth sparkled as his entire face contracted in joy…

Why did he not let that side out more often?

"Well, my initiation is coming up," Sebastian said, once their laughter had died down, and Nick noticed… almost flecks of gold in his eyes. Like Blaine's. And what colour were they, even? They weren't hazel… "And," he brought his attention back to his words, away from those enticing eyes and the angle of his cheekbones and his lips (_so full and warm and man they looked like they could... STOP_), "I want to help you."

Oh. Of course. He had to steal the gavel. But… how was that meant to help Nick? "What do you have in mind…?"

Sebastian bent lower, moved his face up, brushing his lips right up against Nick's ear… completely ignorant of the fact that just a few yards away, at another table in the common room, Jeff was shooting sour daggers into his back… "Listen up. I have a plan."

* * *

**Dedicated to Different Child. Happy birthday, Katie!**

**So, I think this will end up being a two-shot. But, I'm a day late for her birthday, and God knows it's been an age since I last really posted anything, and I'm running to work (some things just NEVER change) but I wanted to get SOMETHING up! So I'll leave you with this for the moment. And, of course, if I find more interesting things to include, it may get expanded. We'll see.**

**So, exams are DONE and I'm really looking forward to writing more for you again!**

**Like it? Hate it? Want me to become trapped in the spider webs by my window? Please let me know!**

**Keep smiling! :D**


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